i'm made of something you can't take
by ohlawsons
Summary: She's spent her whole life being told that the Stone rejects her and the Ancestors won't even recognize her, but it's this, the way Alistair sees right past the brand, that's breaking through the bravado that Talia has so carefully built up.


_**A/N:** prompt from tumblr: "can't let go yet" kiss_

 _talia brosca/alistair, set at the very end of orzammar._

* * *

Talia's used to sharing a bed, but it's still a new thing for Alistair, and that's how she knows he's deliberate about joining her when they return from the Deep Roads and spend their last night in Orzammar in the spacious guest quarters of Bhelen's palace.

She'd chalked it up to convenience, before, but now there's no need to share tents and she isn't sure why he's still laying beside her and they'd both been too exhausted for such a conversation the evening before.

He'd watched her kill her best friend, stood beside her as she'd lied and threatened and bribed her way through a city that was both foreign and familiar all at once – but mostly, and the point Talia finds herself stuck on, Alistair now understands just what her brand _means_. Being casteless means nothing to anyone topside, and she'd hoped to spare him from learning that she isn't _worth_ it, not really, not according to Beraht or the nobility or her own mother.

Alistair thought she was someone worth falling in love with, and Talia's always been selfish and a liar so she's never corrected him, but now he _knows_ and maybe Wynne was right, because he deserves better than to be let down like this.

For all that Talia _feels_ different – sleeping on surface-silk sheets and wearing nothing but a loose emerald tunic that's worth more than she ever was to the Carta – the brand still marks her cheek and her skin burns when she thinks of it; she's slowly gotten used to walking proudly, head held high, but all it takes here is one scandalized look from the other dwarves and she has to fight the urge to slink back to the shadows like the duster she used to be.

Maybe they're right, and she's as sun-touched as any other surfacer if she thinks she actually deserves to be here in the Diamond Quarter. Maybe her mother was right – Rica's just a pretty face and Talia's just a brute and neither of them have ever done anything to earn the good fortune they've been unfairly handed.

But then Alistair stirs and wakes and gives her a sleepy half-grin, and she reminds herself that he still sees _something_ in her, and whatever it is it's enough and she clings to it, and it grounds her in a way the Stone never could.

"You're up early," he says, and the words are as slow and lazy as the way he reaches for her, like they have all the time in the world.

"Didn't get a lot of sleep." Her words are sharp in comparison, spoken too quickly and with too much certainty, like an argument in the making and it makes her cringe. She sits and crosses her legs and folds her hands in her lap, because she doesn't know what to say or do but if she leaves it'll feel like running away. "You?"

"Oh, you know." He shrugs, and even though his tone is deceptively serious he can't quite manage to keep a straight face. "Sleeping in a real bed, in a palace, beside the woman I love? It's _alright_ , I suppose." The facade drops entirely and he beams up at her, even though Talia knows he can't have slept all that well; they're still underground, after all, still close to the Stone and only a few miles from the Deep Roads. The seemingly ever-present pressure at the base of her skull – a way to sense darkspawn and a Warden's greatest asset – isn't as nauseatingly overwhelming as it had been in some of the long-abandoned thaigs they'd traveled through, but it's still _there_ , and still stronger than it had ever been topside.

But Alistair's still grinning, still staring up at Talia with a mix of contentment and adoration and she bites her lip to keep from saying anything; everything about him is so sodding _bright_ , and in that moment all she wants is to drag him back up to the surface where he belongs, with the sun and that big open sky she still doesn't quite trust. Orzammar is all shadows and grime and castes that don't have a place for either Talia or Alistair, even – or perhaps especially – here in the polished Diamond Quarter.

The entire time they've been underground, Talia's wanted to leave, but now it's an almost irrepressible urge, rivaled only by the way she feels her heart might _burst_ with the way Alistair's looking up at her.

"It doesn't bother you," she realizes, the words heavy and uncertain on her tongue. "The… my brand."

It hasn't ever _not_ mattered, and if Alistair has seen the way it's ruled and defined Talia's entire life, has seen how it's marked and scarred her and then decided it _doesn't_ matter – the thought makes her almost dizzy with relief, because this is the one conversation and confrontation she's been most dreading since arriving. She's spent her whole life being told that the Stone rejects her and the Ancestors won't even recognize her, but it's _this_ , the way Alistair sees right past the brand, that's breaking through the bravado that Talia has so carefully built up.

And as soon as she speaks, Alistair's moving and sitting upright and reaching for her; he cradles her cheek and places a kiss to her forehead and there's an intensity to the look he gives her that makes Talia hesitate. The brand – this sodding smudge of ink on her face – is _her_ burden to bear, not his. As he watches her his brow furrows, and one thumb brushes over the casteless mark.

"Of course it doesn't bother me." There's concern in his voice, and maybe a bit of confusion. "If anything, it's _them_ that bother me." Alistair tilts his head towards the door, towards the rest of Orzammar, then adds, "I might not know all about how the castes or dwarven politics work, but the way they act, like... like you're barely even a _person_..."

"Might as well have been raised by dogs?" Already halfway in Alistair's lap, Talia rests her head on his shoulder and lets her arms wrap comfortably around him; she's glad for the proximity and wants to hold him as long as she can, as long as they have before the war and the blight demand their attention again.

"In the mabari's defense, they were excellent caretakers."

She gives a little _Mmm_ of agreement, distracted by the way Alistair's beginning to play with her hair. She might have had even less of any semblance of childhood than he had, but she'd always had Rica; not that any of that matters, not anymore, because they've both found a way out, a new start, with the Wardens and even if the blight is forcing them to face pieces of their childhood they'd both rather forget, they're doing it together.

It doesn't fix the past and it really only does so much to fix the present, but burdens are always lighter when there's someone else helping to bear them.

"We should get going," Talia suggests, because they still have Warden business to attend to and she wants to see her sister again before the coronation that evening. But she doesn't move, because Alistair's still playing with her hair and she's tired enough that she considers falling right back asleep against him.

"We should." It's a few moments before he answers, but when he does his hand drops from Talia's hair to her waist.

Picking her head up from his shoulder, Talia places a kiss first on his cheek, then his lips. "Thank you." Another kiss. "For understanding about the brand. Or... not understanding. Or- sod it, you know what I mean. I love you."

"I do know what you mean. And I love you, too." He returns the kiss but his lips linger on hers; he's eager, as always, and his grip on her waist tightens as Talia allows her lips to part.

She has so many bad memories of Orzammar, and the past two weeks haven't done much to help, but this? This is a good note for their trip to end on.


End file.
